The Foundry

In a decade the Foundry had grown from a few residents with some maker spaces to a full organization with business incubation and youth education programs, community maker spaces, and business and maker classes. The brand no longer fit the energy, diversity, and creativity of the organization.

Two problems needed solutions: 1) The logo and brand didn’t reflect the Foundry’s identity and 2) There was little brand coherence. Staff made social media posts and fliers, but they weren’t designers (nor should we expect that). Without a design strategy, posts weren’t recognizable as the Foundry.

Before you design something, you need to know what you’re designing and why. That’s why the first work of this project was to talk to staff and board members about who the Foundry is, was, and where it is going. All these interviews provided me with the target for design.

I discovered that the Foundry is more than an organization. It is a vibrant, diverse community made up of doers, makers, experts, and learners. These are the values and vibe that lived at the Foundry and needed to be captured in the brand:

  • Vibrant, Exciting, Optimistic
  • Creative, Audacious dreamers
  • Safe, Accepting, Caring, Thoughtful
Some early explorations

We pretty quickly locked in on incorporating a brushstroke and vibrant colors into the current logo design. It felt appropriate because the Foundry is so artistic and creative. It was also a good compromise that preserved some of the legacy elements. We explored a few variants before selecting the best option.

The Foundry had maker spaces, programs, goods for sale, classes, and events.

Some of these needed their own brands and others needed strategic guidance. How do we differentiate them? How do we present the Foundry within these or next to partner logos?

I started with a color strategy that assigned specific colors to each category. Then I created a consistent methodology for the logo design and iconography for each. As you can see here:

Finally, after we created all this structure, we could now build templates that would guide the staff on how to make on-brand content. I built examples for each category: classes, programs, and events that became the design system staff could lean into.

Foundry-Social Media 1
Foundry-Social Media 2
Foundry-Social Media 3
Foundry-Social Media 4

As a reward for making it this far, I’ll giving you the full brand guide. Go ahead,  contact me and I’ll send you the PDF. This type of guidance ensures that customers recognize and connect with brands. Your brand probably needs that and I can build it for you. It won’t just look pretty, it will accurately portray your brand’s values.

Fin.